Poems eBook

The mountain, called by this name, is a remarkable
precipice in Great Barrington, overlooking the rich
and picturesque valley of the Housatonic, in the western
part of Massachusetts. At the southern extremity
is, or was a few years since, a conical pile of small
stones, erected, according to the tradition of the
surrounding country, by the Indians, in memory of
a woman of the Stockbridge tribe, who killed herself
by leaping from the edge of the precipice. Until
within a few years past, small parties of that tribe
used to arrive from their settlement in the western
part of the state of New York, on visits to Stockbridge,
the place of their nativity and former residence.
A young woman belonging to one of these parties related,
to a friend of the author, the story on which the poem
of Monument Mountain is founded. An Indian girl
had formed an attachment for her cousin, which, according
to the customs of the tribe, was unlawful. She
was, in consequence, seized with a deep melancholy,
and resolved to destroy herself. In company with
a female friend, she repaired to the mountain, decked
out for the occasion in all her ornaments, and, after
passing the day on the summit in singing with her companion
the traditional songs of her nation, she threw herself
headlong from the rock, and was killed.

THE MURDERED TRAVELLER.

Some years since, in the month of May, the remains
of a human body, partly devoured by wild animals,
were found in a woody ravine, near a solitary road
passing between the mountains west of the village of
Stockbridge. It was supposed that the person came
to his death by violence, but no traces could be discovered
of his murderers. It was only recollected that
one evening, in the course of the previous winter,
a traveller had stopped at an inn in the village of
West Stockbridge; that he had inquired the way to
Stockbridge; and that, in paying the innkeeper for
something he had ordered, it appeared that he had
a considerable sum of money in his possession.
Two ill-looking men were present, and went out about
the same time that the traveller proceeded on his
journey. During the winter, also, two men of shabby
appearance, but plentifully supplied with money, had
lingered for awhile about the village of Stockbridge.
Several years afterward, a criminal, about to be executed
for a capital offence in Canada, confessed that he
had been concerned in murdering a traveller in Stockbridge
for the sake of his money. Nothing was ever discovered
respecting the name or residence of the person murdered.

THE AFRICAN CHIEF.

Chained in the market place he stood,
&c.

The story of the African Chief, related in this ballad,
may be found in the African Repository for April,
1825. The subject of it was a warrior of majestic
stature, the brother of Yarradee, king of the Solima
nation. He had been taken in battle, and was brought
in chains for sale to the Rio Pongas, where he was
exhibited in the market-place, his ankles still adorned
with the massy rings of gold which he wore when captured.
The refusal of his captor to listen to his offers
of ransom drove him mad, and he died a maniac.